Center for Public Health Sciences

Sonia Suchday

Bio

Sonia Suchday is the Associate Director of the Center for Public Health and the Program Director of the Clinical Psychology Ph.D. (Health Emphasis) Program. Dr. Suchday received her Ph.D. from West Virginia University, M.A. from Connecticut College, and B.A. from St. Xavier’s College, Bombay University, INDIA. She was a Research Associate at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and a Clinical Assistant Professor and Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences prior to joining the Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology in 2001. Dr. Suchday has been elected as a delegate member of the International Union of Psychological Sciences at the National Academy of the Sciences. She has also served on the Educational & Training Committee at Division 38 (Health Psychology) of the American Psychological Association and at the Society for Behavioral Medicine.

Research Interests

Dr. Suchday’s research interests are focused on the biopsychosocial aspects of cardiovascular disorders and other metabolic syndrome-related disorders such as diabetes mellitus and essential hypertension. Specifically, Dr. Suchday’s research has revolved around examining individual predispositions such as anger and hostility and contextual variables such as socioeconomic status and urban stress and their role in predicting stress-induced cardiovascular reactivity in the laboratory and during daily life. Other psychosocial variables include acculturation, spirituality, rumination, and forgiveness. Recent projects include examining psychosocial aspects of acculturation and coronary heart disease risk among Chinese immigrants living in Chinatowon, NYC, psychosocial correlates of the metabolic syndrome among young Indians residing in Mumbai, India.

A second area of focus of Dr. Suchday’s research includes the effects of terrorism on health and identifying individual and sociocultural precursors to terrorism among young people. She was an invited participant at a NATO-sponsored working group on Psychological and Sociocultural Precursors to Terrorism among Immigrant Youth in March 2010.